Social media strategies for entrepreneurs in the COVID19 era.

Well, hi, everybody. Welcome back to this channel. And I am super excited to introduce you to my friend, Shaina Wiesinger. She is the founder and CEO of Repurpose House, where all she does is she takes your content and makes it live forever on the different platforms by turning one piece of content into so many other different pieces. So I'm super excited to have her on here. And today we are going to be talking about how you should be using social media in the COVID 19 era. So. So thank you so much for coming on, Shaina.

Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited to chat about this.

All right, so I'm going to give you a moment to just delve a little deeper, introduce yourself to the audience, and then we'll go to work.

Yeah, perfect. So I'm Shana. I have a background in video production for strategic content creation. And Repurpose House is a company that I started about a year and a half ago. And all we do is take long form content, any type of content, video, text, audio, and turn it into a ton of micro assets for social media. We take the pain out of captioning, sizing, branding, all of that fun stuff, so that you just end up spending your time doing what you're good at and let us do all the painful work that makes it all optimized for social.

Now I use Repurposed House, and I'm really grateful that they chose to take my pain. This works so well for me. So that's really good. Yeah, so you should check them out. All right, so we're in the midst of this unprecedented time, right? You know, we have the health implications of COVID 19, and we don't belittle that. Right. That's a whole thing. But then we also have entrepreneurs, you know, where there's social distancing, their businesses are shut down and all of this stuff. So how should they be using social media now to pivot or to reinvent themselves or to position themselves? Like, what should they be doing?

So there's actually an interesting story that I kind of want to kick this conversation off with. In the. In, like the 1920s, cereal was something that was like, it'd been around for like a decade or two, but, like, people were still really into, like, Cream of Wheat and oatmeal and all that stuff. But the two front runners in the cereal game, if you will, actually it's referenced as, like, the serial wars was Post and Kellogg's. And the Great Depression hit Post decided to panic and retreat, and they pulled all of their advertising budget because they were gonna, like, get down and bear the storm. Right. Kellogg's doubled down on advertising. They went really, really heavy into radio ads, which is like our modern day social media. Yeah, they went really hard into radio ads. They had a new cereal that some of you may have heard of called Rice Krispies. And they were like, we're definite. We're just gonna push it really, really hard. And Post was the front runner, like, by a long shot at the very beginning of all of this.

And.

And by the time it was like 1933, the economy had not corrected yet. It was still really, really bad. And Kellogg's had increased their profits by 30% in the depression.

And then.

Yeah, right.

And now in the depression.

Not absolutely in the depression.

Wow.

And since then, they have, by a very, very long head start, gotten. They are so far beyond Post as like, the leader in their serious industry, but, like, they are the front runner now. And it's massively attributed, massively attributed to the fact that they decided to be there and be a voice while people were going through this really difficult time and they invested in their messaging. And I think that that is a really, really important story. This has happened over the last couple of recessions. I mean, there's other brands that the same types of stories have happened to. And it's been proven that you have to show up when stuff like this happens. Retreating and being afraid to invest time, energy, money in making sure that your message is being put out there is the worst thing you can do for your business. Because ultimately, if people are. If they're not able to do business with you now, they're going to do business with the brands that were there to comfort them during the time of stress. And you want to be one of those brands.

So.

But then it brings to the question, like you were saying the messaging, like, do you pivot now? It's okay. Well, maybe it's a little insensitive for me to just pitch sales, which really we shouldn't just be pitching sales as is, let's be honest.

Yeah.

Like, we had to adjust our approach on social also and what our offerings were like. We made a lot of our courses just free for a while because we're like, listen, people need help. And if you're. And I'm not saying give your stuff away, but I think you need to be issuing messages that are helpful, super helpful during this time and, you know, and making sure that you're sensitive to people's circumstances, for sure.

Okay, so I'm just gonna pedal back A little bit. Because you gave a lot of good stuff here.

I kind of went off. Sorry.

No, no, no, this is good. So I was taking notes. Yeah. So the first thing is don't retreat. That's the worst thing you can do. Like, take it from post. Do not retreat. Right. And then like, Kellogg's go on the offense. This is the time to be out there. This is the time to serve. And you made a really profound statement that the brands that served people in the time of crisis are the brands that they're gonna be loyal to. So if you disappear, there's just no loyalty for you. Like, your business may literally disappear. So we have to be out there and we have to be putting that messaging out there. That is just. That that's good.

That's.

That's really, really good. And then if you need to pivot some of your products, then just pivot that. So practically, let's say, you know, for me, I'm a. I'm a pediatrician. I'm a business coach for physician entrepreneurs. How should I be marketing? So I shouldn't be pitching, per se. I should probably be using a lot of content marketing. What would that look like, say, for the person who was like, I don't really do social media, I don't do videos, but I hear you guys. I can't retreat. So now I have to do social media and now I have to do videos. Where did it start from?

I mean, ultimately, it's just. It's. What do you get asked as often? Like, what do you get asked constantly? How, when you have patients coming through, answer those questions on social. Don't make people come. Especially right now, nobody wants to come into offices. So if they can get their questions answered right, you be that source of knowledge so that they feel comfortable with you giving that source of knowledge. Like, by the time that this thing is all said and done, honestly, if you're just able to educate and make people feel at ease at the same time, then you are absolutely winning. So answering questions absolutely is something that is the easiest thing because you already know the answers. You're answering them every day.

Yeah.

So do the same thing. You know, it's going to be awkward in front of that camera if you're not used to that. But that's just a matter of practice. There's practice with everything. Like, athletes are not awesome at their sport without practice. And I can guarantee you some of my first videos are the worst, most awkward things you'll ever see in your life. Some of them now even still are but, you know, you continuously get better. And just that red light is very intimidating, but just. You got to get past it and just start.

Okay, so the lowest hanging fruit are the questions people keep asking you. So just go answer them on camera and practice, practice, practice. The first videos will be sucky. They will get better.

People get freaked out. They're like, oh, well, what if it's not good? Then delete it and try it again. Like, it's really. You're in control of this.

I have a funny story for you since you brought this up. My first video. So I knew. And at this time, I was seeing patients full time, so I knew one of the ways to grow my practice would be to do video. I was like, it's a low hanging fruit. People are not really doing it. You kind of will be the only pediatrician talking on video. And I was like, like, my face on the world wide web. I was like, no, I'm not doing that. That is not happening. And. And that was my narrative for two years. Two whole years. I was like, I'm not doing that. And then one day, I see this lady on Instagram. She has like 62,000 followers, and she's doing a video, and she has 300 people live, right, watching this Instagram live. And it's the most awful video. Like, awful lighting, background noise. Halfway the video, she's talking to her kid who's behind the camera. Like, what are you doing? Are you doing your homework? What? Why are you doing that? Oh, yeah. So, guys, it was awful. And I went there, and I was like, so what is your excuse? I'm sure you can do a better video than that. Like, what is your problem? And she has 62,000 followers. Nobody knows you because you won't go on camera. So I pulled up a chair, sat by the wall, called my daughter. She was 8 or something at the time, gave her a camera. I was like, we're recording. And I took the video just the way it is. It was no editing. Put it up on Facebook. I was like, the worst video is done. It can only get better from here.

Great way to look at it. Done.

It's still on there. So when I have clients who are like, I can't do video, I pull up the video, say, you see, I have strands of hair out of here. I'm not in the center in the video. The lighting is awful. You cannot do as badly as I did. You'll be just fine.

Hey, good for you for just being like, well, if she can do it.

But it took two Years. So hopefully it doesn't take my audience two years to figure out.

Yeah, no, please don't let it take years. Audience, one thing to know right now is that selfie style video, well, outperforms highly produced video. So literally all you have to do is hold your phone in front of your face and like, face a light source. Like, I'm in front of a window right now and the lighting is cool.

Me too.

It's like just be strategic. Literally holding your phone and talking to your phone. That, that style of content does the best when it comes to video right now. So there's really no excuse.

Wow, that's. I didn't know that. That's really amazing. Okay.

Makes me sad because I have a video production background, but.

Yeah, but you repurpose our stuff, so. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about that a little bit. So we had talked about this a little bit, but I want you to go over the statistics again of the half life of, you know, whatever content you create on social media channels. I just like the numbers because it gives everybody that feel. For one, you shouldn't be afraid to recycle your stuff because it lasted for two seconds. People saw it and forgot about it and most people didn't see it, you know, and then second that, you know, when you work hard to produce a piece of content, you really should be creating many more things out of it, you know, so, yeah, let's hear the numbers.

So the numbers are scary. So if you were to post any post that lands on Twitter only lasts 18 minutes on the feed.

Okay.

It hurts.

It hurts. Sometimes it takes you 18 minutes to do the post though.

Or longer. Right? Yeah, right. The ROI on that is not that great. Not that great. But it only gets better from Twitter. So it's still not great, but it gets better. Facebook, the lifetime of a post on the feed is five hours. Now, keep in mind this is without engagement, without people commenting, things like that. But five hours is not very much. Instagram gets a lot better at 21 hours and LinkedIn is the best with 24 hours. So you get one day on LinkedIn of people being able to see it on your feed again if nobody's commenting or liking. But that's why it's like you got to make sure that you're strategically repurposing all this stuff and posting it consistently on these platforms. Because otherwise, like you said, like, it's not why create the content if you're not going to consistently be repurposing it for all the platforms.

Right, right. Okay. So tell them where they can find you, because you're the repurposed queen. And repurposing is painful. Okay? So creating content is a unique kind of painful, especially for doctors. We don't like to be out there that kind of way, but we do what we must, so we will. I help my clients embrace that pain, but the other pain that you fix, I have them go work with you. I'm just like, she will take away that pain. So where can they find you? And I'll tell them the good deal that I got from Sarah from Repurpose House.

Yeah, for sure. So repurpose house.com. that's going to be where you can see what we do. There's a lot of cool resources there also for learning, so you can learn a lot there as well. And then on all the social channels, you can find me at Shana Weisinger. Just any. Any platform. Shanawisinger. Some of it will have lots of dogs on it. Some of it will have more business stuff, depending on what platform it is. And then Repurpose House on social is Repurpose House co.

Awesome. All right, so if you do check her out. Sorry, when you do check her out, because you should be. If you produce content, you should be. If you look at the plans and you're like, man, I'm going to do this. You know, I'm going to sign up for this and all that. They did give us. Sarah did give us a special discount code so you can get $200 off your first month, which is an unbelievable deal. I didn't even get that when I signed up.

I didn't even know you were doing that one.

I still love you guys. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah told me. I was like, all right, Sarah, I'm not mad at you. Let's do it. Right. So code you will use will be entre md. So that's E n T R E M D. And that will give you 200. $200 off. And then that way you. When you produce one piece of content, you can kind of let it live forever by social media terms. Right. You know, so that's really good. So thank you. Shaina, do you have any last words of wisdom for entrepreneurs who are going through this, navigating this COVID 19 era?

Yeah. You know, just honestly hang in there. I was super stressed at the beginning, but so many of my colleagues and like, my clients, clients, we're all doing everything that we can. And everybody's. I mean, not everybody. People are struggling. Don't get me wrong, but the spirits are so high. Just be a positive influence. Like, just spread positivity. We were saying before this one started recording, you're not the news. Like, we don't need the updates on the negative. Just. Just be there as, you know, a smile, a positive source of something that brings, you know, love and happiness to your audience's life on social media and virtually, because that's what we have right now.

Yep.

So that's my big. Just be. Don't worry, be happy.

Don't worry, be happy. Right. There we go. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And she talked about positivity. I think we've done a lot of episodes of the EntreMD podcast just to help you navigate this whole thing on consistency. I even have an amazing episode coming up with Shaina herself. The consistency, how to manage assumptions, how to pivot, how to reinvent, how to add telemedicine. Like, the whole nine yards. So check it out. Is the ontremd podcast. You can go to ontramd.com podcast to find it and other stuff. But, you know, I believe that if we do what we need to, we'll come out of this and we'll thrive. Like what she was talking about. You can position yourself. So at the end of all this, you're like, I. I never want to see another pandemic, but I'm glad I didn't waste the crisis. And that would be phenomenal. So check that out. Let's stay positive. Let's stay on the. I don't want to say the grind. It makes it sound really grindy, but let's stay reinventing and pivoting and working, and we'll come out on top. All righty. Well, thanks again for coming. Okay. Shaina.

Yeah. Thank you for having me.